Step 12 of 13

Nothing’s what it seems

Detail, other angle

Detail, other angle

If you look closely at the inscription, you’ll see that, while the signs look like cuneiform, they do not actually resemble any existing words or letters. The forger tried to imitate a script without knowing anything about it. The tablet is also rotated peculiarly: clay tablets are usually rotated around their horizontal, and not, as is the case here, around their vertical axis.

The seal prints, too, are abnormal . While it’s true that both images contain elements that occur on real cylinder seals, as a whole, they’re more like a fantasy.